She would have been fairly happy during school hours if she could have had her dog with her; but the teacher’s discretion did not extend as far as this, and so Cloppy was left at home each day to add to the gaiety of Primrose Hall.
“Ladybird at school”
One day after he had added gaiety with especial assiduity, Miss Priscilla announced that she was at the end of her rope, and the dog must go.
It happened that Ladybird came in from school that day in an unusually docile frame of mind. To begin with, it was Friday afternoon and the next day was a holiday. Furthermore, she had wrested a good half-hour from the long school afternoon, with its horrid “general exercises,” by the simple method of rising from her seat and walking out at the door. The teacher saw her do this, but allowed her feeling of relief to blunt her sense of duty. Not but what she liked Ladybird: no one could know the child and not like her; but when one is teaching a district school it is easier if the disturbing element be conspicuous by its absence.
And so, with her course unimpeded, Ladybird marched out of school into the fields, and drawing a long breath, sauntered slowly and indirectly home.
“I had a beautiful time,” she announced to her aunts. “There’s the loveliest afternoon outdoors you ever saw, and I’ve walked all around it. Such a big, fair, soft afternoon, and the sunlight is raining down all over it, and it’s full of trees, and sticks, and fences, and dry leaves; and where’s Cloppy? I’m going out in the orchard.”
“Wait a moment, Lavinia,” said Miss Flint, “I wish to talk to you; sit down in your chair.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird, dropping into a chair suddenly,
“And hurry up your talking